Step 8: Using Email Marketing To Promote Your Home Business

If you have gotten up to step 8 of our series on building a successful home business, then there is no doubt that you really love what you do and is really working hard towards making a success of it. This step eight is all about utilizing email marketing to further project your business before your potential customers and also, boost your relationship with your already existing customers. There are several benefits associated with email marketing but in order to make the most of this marketing method, you have to do it the right way. If you are able to follow the right steps, some of the benefits you will enjoy through email marketing include but not limited to the following:

Yes, through email marketing, a lot of online merchants have been able to effectively convert their sites’ visitors to buyers. This is why it is necessary to carry out this step in the right manner. This is where permission-based email marketing comes in. When you are able to genuinely build your email list through opt-ins, it simply means you have the permission of the owners of these email addresses to mail them your marketing campaigns. If you want to experience higher and better returns on investment in your email marketing effort, opt for permission-based marketing as against unsolicited marketing. Some of the reasons why these customers would trust you and release their email address include the following:

They’re getting what they need from your website

You are consistently responding to comments left on your websites

You have been able to, over a given time period, build good and long-lasting relationship with them.

Email marketing is usually the cheaper but more productive form of marketing for small businesses whose owners are trying to build up passive income. Being a small business owner, your budget does not include promoting your website, products and services through the print and electronic media. That really takes a huge pile of cash while email marketing does not. Having joggled your memory on the effectiveness of email marketing, let us move forward to the steps you should take in order to make a success of your email marketing efforts.

Step 1: Build a permission-based list through your home business website. Wondering how you will go about this? Simply create an opt-in where you offer your site visitors something of great value in exchange for their contact info. If you are marketing beauty products through your website, you can offer them downloads on “Top 5” types of tips and tricks on various beauty issues. It can be “Maintaining Moisturized Skin: Top 5 Tips”. If on the other hand you are marketing information products on freelance writing, you can offer them free webinar in exchange for their contact information.

Step 2: Research on topics that gives them what they want. All thanks to the internet, the shopping and browsing patterns of your online business site visitors tell a lot about them. For example, those who are always researching on “Dry Skin” would not waste time in opening emails that offer them physical products or information products that will help them enjoy properly moisturized skin. This is either because they are already suffering from dry skin or they want to avoid having to battle with dry skin in the future.

Step 3: Create compelling subject lines. A well-crafted subject line has the power to stop your target readers right in their tracks. This can be achieved by adding a sense of urgency in the subject line. For example, you can include phrases like “20% discount today”. You can also create a compelling subject line by letting the target readers know the extent to which they can gain from the product or service being marketed even before reading the body of the email. On this note, instead of writing “How you can reduce wrinkles”, “Reduce wrinkles by 40% today”. It’s more enticing, right? Such phrases have a way of convincing the potential customers to act there and then, instead of later.

Step 4: Include preview texts. This is the text that gives your target readers a preview of what the mail they just received is all about and is usually placed close to the email’s subject line. This means that you have to put in your best efforts in writing this preview text – make it captivating as you can. It has a significant impact on the “open” rate of the emails you send out and to a large extent, determines the success of your efforts towards earning passive income.

Step 5: Create personalized and compelling message. Let’s face it now. We feel more comfortable with any given professional if the person addresses us by our name. It makes you feel like you are actually relating with such person. It is the same thing in sending out emails – they have to be personalized in order for you to make an impact on the potential customer. For example, instead of “Dear Customer, there is something you should know”, you can write “Dear Maureen, there are certain things we would love to share with you”. It works like magic, trust me.

Step 6: Make it short and to the point. As you aim to maximize your passive income opportunities through email marketing, it is important that the messages you send to your potential and existing customers are short and concise. Remember it is the online world – you have just a few seconds to grab readers’ attention. There are higher chances of people reading your messages if they are short and interesting than when they are long and boring.

Step 7: Add colour to it. Marketing messages are more visually appealing when you add graphics to it. These can be your business logo or images that would illustrate and further give a boost to the message your home business is trying to pass to the recipients. However, care should be taken to ensure that these images are scaled to sizes that would take can load within a few seconds as the messages are opened, both on laptop, desktop and mobile devices. If the image is too big and taking like forever to load, forget it.

Step 8:Call to action. After telling your target readers about the product or service you are offering them, it is also necessary that you prod them into taking action. You can write something like this: “Do you wish to return to your once wrinkle-free face? Get product xxx to work the magic for you”

Step 9: Set a follow up sequence. Following all the above recommendation, set a follow up sequence with an Autoresponder to run this in autopilot. Basically, the Autoresponder will allow you to pre write a sequence of emails that will be send to your list based on time or action, as per your configuration. For example, you can set your Autoresponder to send a promotion mail to your list every two days, during one month. For specific communication or information, you can then use the Newsletters. There are many Autoresponder service available out there, but one of the easy to use and reliable I’ve been using and recommend here to help you build your list is GetReponse. They offer a 30 days trial period, you can take a tour by yourself and decide. Check out their website at GetResponse.com

In the course of carrying out an email marketing effort for your online business, don’t ever make the mistake of making vain promises to your potential clients. It has a way of reducing your credibility before them. Don’t include the word “FREE” or use it with caution in your subject line as it could turn them off since a lot of scammers are using that word. Most importantly, understand the geographical locations of your target readers to avoid sending them email at odd hours. You don’t want your email deleted without being read and with a long hiss.With that being said, you should by now be able to build your list! so it’s time to move one step ahead scale your business.Go step 9 here.